cruz wrote:Seasoning your tent is good advice, and while your at it don't forget the seams. Unless you tear a hole in the fabric, the seams are where most leaks will happen. You can get seam sealant just about anywhere and its easy to apply.

I used to own an Eezi-Awn. It was mounted to a custom bed rack on a built Tacoma. It is one of the best roof top tents and you pay for the quality. It was well made, kept me warm and dry, and withstood heavy winds and abuse. That being said, it got old pretty quick. I didn't like the fact that I had to "breakdown" camp every time I wanted to drive somewhere. If i ever go with a high quality tent again, it will not be mounted to my transportation. Look up OzTent online. I would probably do something like that before a RTT. It sets up just as fast, just as durable and doesn't need to be broken down if you want to drive somewhere.

Hey all thinking of trying a rtt on a thule height adjustable bed rack system hopefully will add some cross braces to add robustness when using the truck like an animal lol tent will
Be a smittybilt I think they look good and well made and readily available in Canada. The thule rack looks nice and sturdy realistically I don't need it but it will be nice to have something to run a canoe on if I desire later on and their lowest position will be where I'll keep the tent while it's on the truck so the centre of gravity is low. Anybody have any experience with either of these systems? Smittybilt or thule?

Try to imagine pugs living in the wild- just roaming in the forest in packs...

if guns kill people
pencils mispell words
cars make people drive drunk
and spoons made rosie o'donnel fat

"The one thing you realize when you aquire your trade standard is you realistically don't know Anything"

I am looking at getting a large Tepui tent and building a rack that will sit low over the bed. Next spring I want to buy an M1102 trailer and build a rack over the bed for that too. If we want to stay in one place I'll throw the RTT on the trailer to I don't have to tear it down every day. If I need to travel light or we are going to be on the move, I will mount it over the bed.

I like the OZ tent too but I want to try the RTT as we have never had one. I think it will be a versatile setup if we can shift it from truck to trailer at will.

Anyone have experience with CVT or Tepui tents. And what's your opinion of them? Our little excursion into eastern Oregon yesterday convinced me we want to get a RTT for the Power Wagon and to start camping with the girls. The Airstream is a wee bit to big for off-grid camping.

Anyone have experience with CVT or Tepui tents. And what's your opinion of them? Our little excursion into eastern Oregon yesterday convinced me we want to get a RTT for the Power Wagon and to start camping with the girls. The Airstream is a wee bit to big for off-grid camping.

I have a tepui kukeman ruggedized. I love it. Its durable, comfortable, and easy to use. Looks like they only offer the ruggedized in the "sky" model now, i didnt opt for that because I figured one less hole in the roof the better.http://tepuitents.com/collections/rugge ... f-top-tent

EDIT: click the link to by build thread in my signature to check out how I'm mounting it to the PW.

Last edited by RamGentry on Mon Mar 13, 2017 10:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

We love our second hand Tepui, same as above - Kukenam XL ruggedized. It's big and heavy by comparison to other RTTs, 6' long and about 200 lbs, but it's right at home on the PW as long as you have a sturdy way to hold it.

I carried a friends smaller Tepui when his truck broke, I forget which model, but it's a 2 person. It's definitely borderline tight for 2 people IMO.

Mine is a 4 person, I'd say 3 adults comfortably with backpacks/duffel bags, 4 adults would be tight. Definitely roomy enough for 2 adults and a couple of little ones. For now, it's the two of us and the pups.

I love the Airstreams, I would like to have one of our own down the line. For now this seems to suit our style of camping perfectly since the goal is driving off road to remote camp spots, and 4 wheeling along the way.

It's a big improvement over our KampRite Tentcot. MUCH sturdier in high wind overnight, still noisy, but it's a rigid frame so you won't he smacked in the face when fiberglass poles bend in the wind, and it did great in the 15ish hours of rain we got overnight at the Grand Canyon, however 2 of the corners soaked through a little bit. On 2 other trips we've had light rain, and no water intrusion. To try and mitigate and future issues with water, I picked up a bottle of Nikwax waterproofing spray. I can't say how well the non ruggedized models would fair in the rain, but they are considerably lighter and less expensive. If you aren't buying new, keep an eye out on expedition portal, I found mine there in the classifieds.

We had a CVT Shasta and were super disappointed. Partly because the tent leaked like a friggin sieve. Even a tiny sprinkle would go straight through. We partly disliked it because a big part of buying the tent for us was the annex room, and we discussed our use with CVT but when we went to use it the annex was useless for our height. Unless you put the tent at cab height the annex is almost useless. And they flap in the wind like you couldn't imagine. We returned it to CVT, less shipping. I would highly suggest looking at the OzTent lines. We were very close to getting a Malamoo due to the super fast setup and relatively small packed size. Their RV tents are also super sweet designs. Expensive but worth it, it would seem. I would not trade for the semi-permanent mounting, high weight, difficulty of loading/unloading, high cost, and poor nights sleep in wind (with ear plugs in) to gain the setup time, elevation and baller status of a RTT. But that's just my opinion. Best of luck Mike!

We've got the Airstream because we lived in it while traveling 24/7 for two years. But that never felt like camping once, even though you could say we were camping. I did some actual camping, and I've always loved a tent and sleeping bag, and I was like, SH/T I must be getting old, the ground sucks, lol. I think the RTT will be a good fit for weekend getaways.

Kind of a bummer to hear that about the CVT. I was looking at them a lot. But on AAV another member reported theirs coming in a cardboard box only and being damaged. Made me very uneasy.

I've normally heard good things about CVT but that wasn't my experience. SheepdogOutdoorsman here told me a little about RTTs before buying and he suggested 23zero after Turtle ack Trailers switched to them from CVT. CVT does have good customer support and they gave me everything I needed - down to rather one wrenches to assemble it. I wasn't hot on Tepui due to pricing and colors but I did like the 23zero stuff. The tents do feel realistically sized.

I am thinking, If I was gonna have a rooftop tent (which I planned on at one point), it would HAVE to be able to handle extreme bad weather if need be once in a while. These seem like the best solution to that end. But having never owned one, I am just speculating on it's weather resistance based on the fact that others I have seen just cover the tops & a little bit of the sides. http://tepuitents.com/products/protective-weather-hoods

Tepui Ruggedized seem sweet. The James Barouds are cool but dang expensive. One of the South African or Aussie companies just released a new one, maybe it was Eezi-Awn that is like a heavy duty James baroud but it uses a winch to raise it. That seems sketchy and expensive. Frankly the problem with RTT's is that it's still a damn tent! I really liked the OzTent options

Just got back from a weekend of camping. One of our friends has a Smittybilt RTT on his Tundra. We were saying goodbye and I was helping him pack it up and thought... Holy crap I had this exact tent! The Smittybilt was almost dead on identical to my CVT Shasta. Down to the material, sewing, features, aluminum framing, everything was the same parts. The only difference really was that the cover attached by Velcro rather than a zipper, which honestly works better than the stupid zipper CVT uses. He said his friend with a Tepui said the same exact thing when he saw the Smitty, it was the same tent minus the zipper. Mike, if that is the case you might just get a Smitty and be done with it, if the size works for you. They have a larger size out now I believe. Our friend has had it for several years and goes all over the country with it, he loves the thing.

When we were at Overland Expo last year the owner of Nemo told me there is only one or two companies making RTT's. Somebody developed the pattern and whoever else wants a tent just makes minor changes and is good to go. I hadn't seen that in person until this weekend.